Tofu Skin Recipes

Whenever I'm at the Asian grocery store, I buy large quantities of fresh yuba (tofu skin) whenever it's available. If you've wanted to try a vegetarian meat substitute but were suspicious it would taste bland, I urge you to try these yuba stuffed mushroom appetizers.

If you're not familiar with yuba (tàu hũ ky in Vietnamese), this food product is the film that's formed on the surface after boiling the soy beans in water. I bought ready-to-use fresh yuba, so all I needed to do was season it. I made a mixture of rice vinegar, brown sugar, cornstarch, garlic, ginger, tahini, yuba, five-spice powder and black sesame seeds.

The assembly was very easy. I stuffed the yuba filling into hollowed crimini mushrooms and garnished the appetizers with sunflower seeds for extra crunch. Voilà!

I'm going to be posting several Thanksgiving-inspired dishes in the next few weeks. Turkey is, for obvious reasons central to the Thanksgiving meal, but if you're a vegetarian like my husband Lulu, Thanksgiving is also synonymous with many other dishes. I'll share them with you but since it's Monday, I'm going to continue to support the Meatless Monday campaign that encourages people to not eat meat on Mondays to improve their health and the health of the planet.

Tofurkey is a great meat substitute for the holiday. Making your own faux turkey isn't that complicated. I prepared a chickpea and crouton filling. I used thin lemon grass stalks to resemble the turkey legs and wrapped the whole thing in tofu skin. I cooked the tofurkey legs with fried tofu pieces and white cabbage. The glazing of maple syrup and soy sauce completed this tasty dish. This homemade meat-substitute is not only delicious but also packed with protein.